SAT-B3 Lost in Translation: Cultural Case Studies for an International Design Practice

René Bihan, ASLA is the Managing Principal of SWA Group’s San Francisco office. SRené is an accomplished Landscape Architect, Urban Designer and Educator interested in issues of Urbanism, Landscape Design, and their symbiotic relationship to dense urban cities. Based out of the San Francisco office, his studio was recently recognized with the ULI Global Award of Excellence for Beijing Finance Street, a significant urban park in the Heart of historic Beijing.

David Thompson, ASLA is a project designer with a broad range of experience, from detailed site design to complex urban planning. During his 25 years as a designer at SWA, he has worked mostly abroad, particularly in China, Latin America, and Russia. As a result, he has developed what he calls a “flexibility of approach” in solving complex design problems, and has become adept at “exercising the basic tenets of landscape architecture with the subtle complexities of culture and contextual geography.